I think people will just have to come to terms with the fact that a label does not have to have a strict definition to be useful. As long as it can point people in the general direction of understanding, then it's a practical way to communicate. For example, as long as me and Necromancer both agree that Rush and Yes are prog bands, then we can communicate about that by using the word prog, even if our personal definitions differ on the fringes. Progressive rock is just not a very well defined genre and it probably never will be.
When it comes to very early prog rock, basically before people started imitating the greats, I pretty much feel like this; In the late 60s and into the early 70s, there was a sort of Cambrian Explosion, only in rock music. Rock diversified into a wealth of new shapes and forms, including many which would not be able to survive for very long in a capitalistic music market. I think most of those early prog bands were not concerned with sounding like other bands or like eachother. They wanted to sound unique and do their own thing and they did that by taking rock to new places. Gentle Giant and ELP f.ex sound wildly different. When the same label was finally applied to all these bands, it was applied to them because they were taking rock into new places, because they were trying to be different. So taking that into consideration, how are you supposed to define them by the things that made them alike so that it makes sense?
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12-07-2012, 12:14 PM
Hybrid Mode